Tower transfers SiGe process to Israel

LONDON – Tower Semiconductor Ltd., a specialty foundry that trades under the name TowerJazz, has transferred a 130-nm silicon-germanium process from its Newport Beach fab to one at Migdal Haemek, Israel.

Tower said the SBL13 process as heavily analog that uses SiGe bipolar for the analog and CMOS for digital control and that it had enhanced the process with a copper interconnect back-end. The process is aimed at wireless RF and digital TV tuners. Tower said it has design wins from customers that want to use the copper back-end and that volume is expected to ramp in the first half of 2012.

The SBL13 process includes three NPN transistors with 40-, 74- and 100-GHz transition frequencies as well as high density passive elements such as high-density MIM capacitors and 3-micron thick copper inductors. 130-nm CMOS with copper metallization achieves digital logic densities of up to 200-kgates per square millimeter to result in higher performance and more highly integrated RF products.

"This helps extend our leadership in SiGe technology and provides a unique multi-fab SiGe sourcing capability for our customers," said Marco Racanelli, senior vice president and general manager of the RF and high performance analog business group at Tower, in a statement.